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Saturday, 7 February 2015

Citadel Barbarians!

Bryon Anvil and his Valkyrie bodyguard

I finished the little group of barbarian models that I started a few weeks back today, and managed to grab two minutes away from the needs of the wife and kids to take a snap of them. They are for use in the forthcoming Oldhammer game at Slayer Gaming in Mansfield on the 28th February. A game that bucks the trend of huge battles, as instead of bringing a whole army and fielding it players are encouraged to deploy much smaller forces. Even a single figure if the player so desires! Warlord Paul is GMing the game for us and I am really looking forwards to the meet up.

Why barbarians?

Obviously, they are a considerable step away from the stuff I usually take to games - and experimenting with new ground is an important part of any hobby. I have always been a fan of Robert E Howard's Conan stories after finding a battered copy of his tales in a second hand book shop in 1995 and fancied exploring the themes of bare (no doubt heaving) bosoms and mighty thews.

The bare-breasted girl on the far right served as my test piece. I was keen to do something with flesh tones beyond just adding white. This was fine for my chaos models as the pasty-skin look is favourable to Slaanesh (and Chico) but not really for sun burned, mighty thewed barbarians. I used a mix of red and dark brown to shade the flesh itself and then worked back up to the original flesh tone - which was the new Citadel one called Kislev Flesh. I added a little Foundry Boneyard 9c to the final highlights and attempted to blend them all in.

The rest of the colours I kept pretty much consistent, preferring to use a limited palette to convey the primitive nature of these savage types. I used spot colours of blue and green here and there to add variation. The bases were completed in my usual way.

I haven't fully decided on the background for these figures yet, beyond the name of the chief and I hope they don't suffer the curse of all newly painted troops when the game begins.